{"id":647979,"date":"2026-06-19T23:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/647979\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T23:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T23:22:13","slug":"essex-council-to-take-government-to-court-over-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/647979\/","title":{"rendered":"Essex council to take government to court over reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last month, Harris wrote to Communities Secretary Steve Reed explaining the authority was considering legal action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Government <a href=\"https:\/\/dmscdn.vuelio.co.uk\/publicitem\/6925fd0b-9ffe-4a87-b6af-ea15626c9fc7\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lawyers formally responded this week, external<\/a>, saying there was no case to argue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the letter also revealed that the government felt a three-council model for Essex was the only one &#8220;we assess to be financially viable within five years&#8221; and five councils would be &#8220;weaker in respect of finances and public service delivery criteria&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Reed also wanted the new unitary councils in Essex to &#8220;retain connection to local communities&#8221; and the five-authority model would &#8220;best meet local housing needs&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If granted permission by the High Court, the judicial review could be heard over the summer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A senior judge would then check if the government has acted within the law and has followed proper procedures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elections to the new unitary councils are due to take place in May and formally take effect in April 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Reform won a majority at Essex County Council after the local election on 7 May, ending the Tories&#8217; 25-year control of the authority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, Harris wrote to Communities Secretary Steve Reed explaining the authority was considering legal action. Government lawyers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-647979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}